The Azurbala Reveal Did Not Go As Planned. What's Next?

GM. Welcome to our weekly coverage of NFTs and the Metaverse. This week:

• NFT trading volumes and buyers are at their yearly lows. Ouch!
• K-POP and NFTs? This upcoming mint has it all.
• Jenkins the Valet hit a snag with its Azurbala art reveal.

Let’s dive in!

🚨 State of the Market

September was the lowest volume month for NFTs in 2022. Weekly OpenSea volumes hover under $80M, while SudoSwap and X2Y2 volumes continue trending downwards. OpenSea signals its belief in a multi-chain future for NFTs, expanding its marketplace to Arbitrum and Klaytn (the blockchain by the leading South Korean mobile platform Kakao).

The number of monthly NFT buyers (on Ethereum) continues to fall for the 5th straight month, with about 226,000 unique buyers in September. This is lower than a year ago (September 2021), indicating that the number of active participants has fallen despite all the new projects launched in the past 12 months. Uncertainty in the broader markets and macro volatility are probably the main culprits here. The average transaction value on OpenSea is around $202 (0.15 ETH).

One collection that is bucking the downtrend is NFL All Day. This is the American football equivalent of NBA Top Shots, also created by Dapper Labs. Collectors can purchase and open card packs, which contain different rarities of cards representing various NFL moments and players. Daily sales volume on NFL All Day has surged since July and accounts for most of NFT volume traded on the Flow blockchain this month. Could this be another Top Shot in the making as fervent fans and speculators buy up the cards? Time will tell.

🔥 Top NFT Collections This Week

Another relatively quiet week in NFT land, with the majority of trading volume concentrated around two collections, RENGA & QQL Mint Pass:

• Tyler Hobb’s QQL Mint Pass was sold out in a Dutch Auction at 14E per pass, netting 12,600 ETH (~$17M) for the artists in a single day. It continued to do well on the secondary market, with over 5000E in trading volume in the past week, resulting in ~360E in royalties (7% fee). This speaks to the power of Tyler Hobb’s personal brand and community of collectors. Very few artists in the world today can generate